[arch-dev-public] Replacing common network programs (netkit-*, etc} with GNU inetutils

[Eric Bélanger]

Hi,

As suggested in FS#12281, we could add inetutils to the repo to replace, 
among other things, the netkit-* packages which are no longer maintained upstream and 
mostly orphaned. Inetutils could potentially replace several packages 
either entirely or partially. Here is a list of network tool that 
inetutils can provide and the corresponding packages that it might 
replace. Discussion is below the list.

==================
--enable-ftpd
N/A

--enable-inetd
Could replace xinetd

--enable-rexecd
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-rlogind
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-rshd
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-syslogd
Could replace sysklogd partially : syslogd

--enable-talkd
N/A

--enable-telnetd
Could replace netkit-telnet

--enable-tftpd
Could replace netkit-tftp (a xinet daemon)
Could replace tftp-hpa (a rc.d daemon)

--enable-uucpd
N/A

--enable-ftp
Could replace netkit-ftp

--enable-ping
Could replace iputils partially : ping

--enable-ping6
Could replace iputils partially : ping6

--enable-rcp
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-rlogin
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-rsh
Could replace netkit-rsh

--enable-logger
Could replace util-linux-ng partially : logger

--enable-talk
N/A

--enable-telnet
Could replace netkit-telnet (a xinet daemon)

--enable-tftp
Could replace netkit-tftp
Could replace tftp-hpa

--enable-whois
Could replace whois

--enable-ifconfig
Could replace net-tools partially : ifconfig
==================

Point A) If we decide to not replace parts of packages in the repo, then we disable syslogd, ping, ping6, logger and ifconfig.
Point B) From Greg comments in FR, we should keep the current xinetd (best inet implementation) and
         whois (actively maintained) standalone packages. So we disable inetd and whois.

Let me know if you agree/disagree on following Point A & B.

Other points of discussion:

tftp: inetutils'tftp is to be run via xinetd like netkit-tftp. tftp-hpa 
uses a rc.d daemon script. I don't know what is best and if it's something 
we should worry about. In fact, I don't know anything about xinetd so I'll 
need to read docs to get the daemon setup correctly. Does anyone has 
experience in xinetd-style daemon script?

About the talk{d}: we recently moved netkit-talk to unsupported. Do we 
build them in inetutils?

ftpd: do we add the ftp daemon? We already have several of these (probably 
better ones) in extra. There won't be any conflict so we could still add 
it.

uucpd: I don't know what it does. Do we add it?

Basically, this thread is to discuss if we add inetutils in the repo 
(probably in core as netkit-tenet is in core) and what tools the inetutils 
package should contain, i.e. what package should be replaced by it.

BTW, I don't have any experience with several of these clients/servers, so 
help in creating the deamon file (especially the xinetd ones) or testing 
might be necessary. FTR, I have a rough PKGBUILD draft if someone is 
interested..

Eric

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